


I'm Sorry

by brucethegirl



Series: 100 ways to say i love you [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, small angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucethegirl/pseuds/brucethegirl
Summary: Kuroo and Yachi get into a fight. Words were said, and now apologies are made.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Yachi Hitoka
Series: 100 ways to say i love you [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694542
Comments: 4
Kudos: 94





	I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> The amazing Alyss created the very first art ever made unsolicited from my writing, [check it out here](https://twitter.com/noxalyss/status/1301390453229547521?s=20).

Yachi was on her computer, wrapping her hair around a finger like she always did when she was deep in thought. 

Would it look better in pastels, or neons? 

It wasn’t even her final project but she still put too much stress on her projects. She was always top of her class though, and whenever Kuroo told her to not take it so seriously she’d just stare blankly at him. He was such a natural at volleyball and at science, his two main loves. She knew he worked hard, but this was different. He could sympathize, but never understand how she felt when she finally submitted a project she was proud of. 

He’d always been an instigator. Always thought the way to help people was to agitate them enough to question themselves and their motivation. It worked for his team in high school, for _her_ team in high school. It worked for his lab partners and his new teammates in college. But it wouldn’t work on her. She wasn’t in this for a competition, to get stronger, and beat everyone else. That wasn’t her motivation. And that was the key component to his tactic. 

For her, this was a creative outlet. It was where she expressed herself even if only within the bounds of an assignment. Why couldn’t he understand that? She thought she’d explained it well enough. 

Instead it had become their biggest fight yet. That he didn’t understand because he loved his degree and he loved his sport and she’d always come third so why would he bother understanding her?

He looked shocked, as though she’d insulted him, and walked out. 

She’d cried for ten minutes. Tried sending him a text before erasing everything. Only to realize he’d left so quickly his phone was still on the kitchen table, anyway. Then she decided to drown herself in the very project that started it all. 

She sighed heavily and threaded her hair through her fingers like liquid. 

She sent both versions to her mom for her opinion and pushed away from the computer. Then sent a quick text asking her mom to check her email, that she was looking for an opinion on a project. 

Which led to an immediate reply asking why Kuroo couldn’t offer his opinion- which would be much less likely to be seen as cheating in the eyes of the professor.

An opinion of a potential consumer versus a professional. 

Yachi rolled her eyes and said she was just getting feedback to help her decide and that all she wanted was a quick preference. 

Her mother replied with a detailed analysis of both options. Yachi laid down on the couch and didn’t even read the messages as they came through. 

She glanced at the clock and started fidgeting. Why wasn’t he back yet? He didn’t even have his phone for her to get in touch. Even if he was mad, he knew better than to make her worry like this. 

She took a shuddering breath. Unless... he _didn’t_ care anymore. Unless he no longer had any reason to want her to not worry. 

She’d gone too far, she knew he loved her. That his love for her was different. That it wasn’t that effortless thing he felt with science and volleyball. She accepted that. But then he kept trying to fix her problems just like he would anything else. 

She hated it. 

But she also hated being third best. Always. 

There was a sudden coolness across her temple and into her hair. She tenderly touched it. A tear. 

She swept at her eyes and her fingers came back damp. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as a sob clawed out from her throat. 

How long had she been crying?

She felt soft fingertips brush her hair back and the wetness was cracked and dry in the corner of her eye. How long has she been asleep?

His deep voice was almost reverent as he said, “Hey.” She glanced at Kuroo kneeling next to the couch. Then at the window which still showed a dark moonlit sky. 

She looked back at him and saw his hair was messier than usual, a tightness in his eyes, a sadness in his smile. A relief in his shoulders. She let out a deep breath. 

“You left your phone.” She said quietly. 

He turned to look at it, “Yea. I’d noticed...” he chuckled softly and looked back to her. He sighed and brushed her hair from her face again before cupping the back of her head, cradling it as he brought his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry.” His voice cracked and she shook her head. 

“No. I shouldn’t have been so demanding. I should-“

“Stop it.” It was more forceful than she’d ever heard him off the court and her mouth snapped shut. “You honestly-“ he broke off and the breath he took was almost watery, “you think your _third?_ ” His fingers flexed slightly and his other hand slid to her waist and gripped. “You think I could- that I-“ he shook his head, “Hitoka. I _love_ you.” He shifted his head so he could catch her eyes. She shivered at the intensity in them. It was what Karasuno had seen across a net, what his lab partners saw focused on a beaker. It was determination and a controlled kind of desperation. “I would quit my degree. I would quit _the team_. In a heartbeat.” She started to shake her head and tried to pull back, but he held firm. “But I know you enough that you’d hate that. So I didn’t. But when I left that’s what I was going to do. All I could think was _showing you_ it wasn’t true. And that I was so sorry. So-“ his breath was shaky, “sorry that you thought that. That I’d _done anything_ that made you think you were _less than_ any single thing on this entire planet.”

“What about Kenma?” She teased because he’d rubbed off too much after two years of dating. 

He laughed but sobered quickly. “Kenma isn’t who I want to mother my children, and hold my hand, and he isn’t who makes me feel like I’m worth something. Like I can achieve anything. Not like you do.” He pulled away, “here” he said as he handed her a bouquet of pink camellias. She gasped, she now realized the entire apartment was drenched in their sweet smell. “I got your favorite flowers. I’ll get you them every day for the rest of my life if you want me to.”

“Tetsu-“

But he wasn’t finished. “And also this,” a small cement planter with a small round succulent, “you always stop and look at them, but you never get one because you worry about killing it. I got the cutest one they had,” he handed her a small book _Simple Succulents_ “and a book with all the basics.” She heard rustling and looked at him. He had three bags and was digging in one from her favorite art supply store, “and this is a book on that architecture style you like. Your mom has it at her office. But this is your copy.”

Sure enough, the book she’d flipped through a thousand times was now in her lap. She’d never even said anything about it. Design was never Kuroo’s wheelhouse. When she began to ask he cut her off, “whenever we pass the Ftown building you sigh and take a picture. You have like,” he couldn’t stop the laugh from his lips, “a thousand pictures of the same building in different lighting.”

A thought struck him and he turned back around and handed her the small paper bag. “It was the very last one too,” the brown sugar fugashi that she loved. 

“Did you stress shop?” She laughed. 

He smiled and dug into the last bag, pulling out a set of pastel highlighters from the brand she preferred, “and you asked me a question earlier. I didn’t answer it. Because I’m an ass. I think the pastel is better. It’s more reflective of you. Soft and perfect. And gentle and” he really was about to cry, “comforting every single time I need it. Even though I _clearly_ don’t deserve it.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve quickly, never acknowledging what he was wiping away but his voice was stronger when he said, “you are number one, two, and three, Hitoka. You’re everything to 100 on the list of things I love. _Then_ comes my degree and volleyball. Then it’s just you. A bunch more times. Everything you are is everything I love. Everything. And when you said- When I realized you _actually thought_ that I cared more about experiments and sports... than _you_. I had to fix it.” He nodded at the gifts all around her. “You had to know that I _do_ understand you. And I plan on spending every single day trying to understand you better, and making sure you know that I _see_ you.” 

She shoved everything off her lap and held his cheeks and squished like he always loved doing to her. It worked less successfully on his long, thin face than it did on her round cheeks. But his lips still pursed and she smiled as she kissed him soundly. “I’m sorry I said that. I was just frustrated. I shouldn’t have-”

“You believed it.” He said in an inhibited voice, unable to fully form syllables with his face held as it was. 

“But I shouldn’t have. You always show me how not true it is. Even when you _aren’t_ going on my ideal shopping trip without me,” she raised an eyebrow. 

His eyes widened as he her words sunk in, “Yea you probably would have rather-“

“Yes, I probably would have.”

They both laughed until it fell into comfortable silence. 

“I’m sorry, Hitoka. For all of it. I didn’t mean it.”

She kissed him, letting go of his cheeks to run her hands through his soft locks and letting it slither between her fingers like water. He locked both arms around her waist as he pulled her close and pressed her against him as tight as she could go without crushing her lungs. 

She broke the kiss as a thought occurred to her, “how did you afford all this?”

”Kenma leant me the money.”

“Tetsuro!”

He laughed, “I mean- I’m just going to pay him back from my stocks tomorrow.” He shrugged. 

“Wait-“

He kissed her again and lay her back against the cushions. She could find out about Kenma’s business success tomorrow. Right now, he wanted her mind solely on him. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably THE MOST self-indulgent bit of angst/comfort I have ever written. Cause sometimes- you just need that...  
> And also please check out the PERFECT art done by [Alyss](https://twitter.com/noxalyss/status/1301390453229547521?s=20)!


End file.
